Autoblog

Click on image above for a high-res gallery from our GT-R First Drive!

Nearly 700 Brits plunked down pre-order deposits of £3,500 (about $7,000) within the first 48 hours of Nissan's hot GT-R going on sale, proving demand for the latest Japanese supercar doesn't seem to be diminishing. Customers in the UK don't seem to be deterred by the GT-R's base sales price of £52,900 (about $105,000), or the fact they won't see delivery until March 2009. After our "First Drive" in the GT-R, you won't see us ridiculing frenzied buyers...

[Source: Nissan UK]

Daimler's not taking the close resemblance of a Chinese minicar to a smart fortwo lightly. The German automaker has gotten a court order forbidding Martin Motors, the European distributor for China's Shuanghuan Automobile, from displaying the Shuanghuan Noble at the upcoming Bologna Auto Show. This is the second time Daimler has blocked the Noble from being displayed, having taken similar action at the Frankfurt show.

Martin Motors is calling the Noble the Bubble in Europe, since there's already another Noble. Martin contends that the Bubble is not a copy of the fortwo, citing the four seats and front engine configuration among the differentiating details. Martin Motors has also demanded in Italian courts that Daimler prove its exclusive rights to the design of the smart. If a resolution can be reached, the Bubble will go on sale for about $10,000 euros across Europe. The resemblance is striking, but copying the look isn't the same as cribbing the underlying engineering. We haven't had the opportunity to crawl over, under, or through the Bubble, so we can't comment on whether it's better or worse than the smart, but from the looks of things in the video we've posted after the jump, the Bubble is hardly a premium vehicle. Shuanghuan also sells the CEO, a midsize SUV that borrows an awful lot from the BMW X5's looks. The appearance similarities between Shuanghuan's vehicles and those of well respected competitors may not help the Chinese automaker avoid having its European sales bubble burst.

Check the jump to see a video of the Noble/Bubble in action.

More shots from Autoblog China.

[Source: Automotive News - Sub. Req.]

Toyota's learning that in the case of the Tundra, American buyers won't just pick from the selection of trucks the dealer has left. It's a role reversal for the automaker used to people accepting whatever Camry they can get.

Former VP of Marketing Jim Farley said Tundra buyers "have a build-to-order mentality that we are not used to at Toyota." Whereas a Ford truck dealer often has an inventory that looks like the factory shipping yard, or has a dealer nearby who does, Toyota doesn't keep nearly as much inventory on hand. But truck buyers want what they want, and they don't want to pay for it until they see it. Toyota and its dealers are having to adjust. The company is using a vehicle pool, swapping Tundras between regions, and letting dealers modify orders. But as Toyota gets to know more of the American car buyer, it will find out just how many hurdles domestic makers often have to jump through to make a sale. It's not easy being number one -- just ask GM.

[Source: Autoweek]

The DeLorean Motor Company owes a lot to the Back to the Future franchise for its reverred place in pop culture history. While the original DeLorean Motor Company has ceased to exist, a different DeLorean Motor Company is now operating that does everything for the DMC-12, including full restores and offering original factory replacement parts. The new DMC also has a sense of humor, as the Digg.com community learned last night.

Someone noticed that if you typed "flux" into DMC's online store search, the results would come up with a Flux Capacitor (part #18851985 - nice) for $5,995. This led to other Digg members trying out different searches, and it wasn't long before a Hover Conversion was also found (part #19852015) for $12,995. Needless to say, the Digg community went crazy, voted the submission to up over 3,000 diggs, and inundated DMC's website traffic. Some people actually went so far as to the order the fictitious parts, which required them to enter their credit card numbers, and in turn they received an actual order confirmation.



Last night around 11PM EST, however, DMC decided it had had enough fun and took the items out of its inventory. Thankfully, they're good sports and reinserted the items today, this time without prices. So, if you've got a DeLorean, you can now get your flux capacitor and hover conversion, too. Then all you'll need is 1.21 gigawatts!

[Source: Digg]